Ruts. We all have them.

A rut is a settled or established habit or course of action, especially a boring one. It is usually a boring, predictable, stale routine.

So, is your conference education stuck in a rut? Have you created predictable tracks and paths?

If you’re like most meeting professionals, you start planning for next year’s conference with good intentions and end up with the same format and tracks. Often you have very few new faces at the podium. The end result is a cookie-cutter experience.

Audiences Want An Education Refresh

If you want to retain and grow your audience, breathing new life into your conference education is a must. Here are four quick fixes to consider that will help you design an improved conference experience:

1. Make the Content Current

Results of a survey of 250 association professionals, conducted by Velvet Chainsaw and Tagoras in September, indicated that about 75 percent of respondents use a speaker’s call-for-presentations process that closes nine to 10 months before the annual conference. Attendees often complain that education is too basic and outdated.

The Fix: Re-examine your call-for-presentations deadline and shrink it to six to eight months out from the conference. Program 80 percent of your sessions for the initial marketing push, leaving holes that can be filled with relevant and timely topics. Announcing newly added sessions in the weeks leading up to your meeting is a drip-marketing campaign strategy that helps attract hold-out registrants. Consider an exclusivity clause in your speaker agreements stating that their content will be presented first at your conference and not presented at another event for an extended period of time.

2. Identify Content Gaps

Conferences that rely solely on the call-for-presentations process rarely produce the education that your participants need most.

The Fix: Prior to opening up your call-for-papers, survey or crowdsource your primary audience segments to gain an understanding of their major problems. Make it clear that proposals that map to your primary audience segment needs will be given greater consideration. After plotting the initial program based on the problems, then see which proposals match to the needs. Then seek out presenters that fill any missing gaps.

3. Coach Industry Speakers

Sending speaker communication to manuals or speaker portals isn’t enough. Much of this type of communication is ignored and focuses on logistical needs versus education excellence.

The Fix: Helps speakers prepare content that is current and includes audience participation. On average, it takes about eight hours to prepare a one-hour presentation. Are your presenters putting in this  much time?

A common attendee complaint is “there wasn’t enough time for the session.” Make sure your presenters are focused on the three-to-five things they want the learner to recall. Content reduction and laser focus should be your mantra.

4. Continuous Improvement

According to the survey referenced previously, only 70 percent of conference organizers ask attendees to rate each speaker in their session evaluations. If you want an improvement, you must have better data.

The Fix: Keep a speaker database or Excel workbook with ratings. Session evaluations should evaluate each speaker’s style, delivery and knowledge. Also, survey whether the presentation matched the learning objectives. Top speakers should be invited back and will need less coaching. The intent is to invite back only the cream of the crop. The top 25 percent is a good rule of thumb.

Leadership Participation is a Must

If your organization’s leaders are not actively attending and participating in the conference education, that needs to change. No board or committee meeting is as important as participating fully in the education and networking experience alongside those professionals that organizational leaders serve. Don’t allow these conflicts during official conference education.

Adapted from Dave’s People & Processes column in PCMA’s November 2011 edition of Convene. Reprinted with permission of Convene, the magazine of the Professional Convention Management Association. ©2012.

Why do you think some conference organizers resist change and cling tightly to their traditional call-for-presentation methods?  What are some tips that you would add to this list to improve conference education?

If you play cards you know the importance of a trump. No, not the Donald with the bad red hair.

A trump is a card which ranks higher than the played cards. A trump suit outranks all cards of plain suits.

Literally, a trump refers to any sort of action, authority or policy that automatically prevails over others.

The Brain’s Natural Learning Trumps

The fields of cognitive psychology and neuroscience study how the brain takes in, stores, retrieves and applies information. Cognitive scientists and educators are learning new ways to apply this information. It’s that application that has lead to these learning trumps.

A learning trump card is one that reigns over more traditional and established education practices. When one strategy trumps another, it means that it is a better and more influential way of learning.

Hat tips go to author and trainer Sharon Bowman as she originally published six trumps of learning. I’ve modified some of Bowman’s trumps and added new ones.

10 Brain-Based Learning Laws That Trump Tradition

How can speakers expect their audience to remember what they say if they don’t know how people learn? These learning laws are powerful strategies that align with how our brains naturally operate and learn.

1. Brain science trumps traditional education.

Knowing how the brain naturally operates is similar to knowing the laws of driving. Could you drive without knowing the rules of the road? Sure you could! Yet, you would probably create a lot of traffic problems. And eventually cause a wreck.

The same applies to presenting to others without knowing how the human brain learns. If you do it, you increase the chance that it won’t work well. Unfortunately, the learner is the one that deals with the disaster.

2. Emotions trump facts.

For years we’ve assumed that dumping data, information and stats on audiences is in their best interest. We believe that we should separate feelings from facts and leave emotions at home.

Wrong! Neuroscience has proven that everything the brain learns is filtered through emotions. There are no exceptions. How we use emotion to aide learning determines learning’s success.

3. Talking trumps listening.

Here’s the law: the person doing the most talking during an education session is the one doing the most learning. So that’s actually the speaker.

We need to create more learning opportunities where the speaker talks for about 10 minutes and then the audience talks to each other. We talk in pairs or small groups so we can understand. We talk so we can remember. We talk so we can process.

No, not Q & A time with the presenter. Then only one person is talking and learning. Peer to peer or small group talking trumps one person asking a question any day!

4. White space trumps information dumps.

Many presenters try to cram as much information and data into their presentation as the time permits. We’ve assumed that content covered means content learned. We’ve also assumed that if we cover more content, the listener learns more.

Wrong! The amount of learning directly aligns to the amount of thinking and reflection. We need to create more white space (time for the learner to think) and less pushing of content. The more the learner is allowed to reflect, the more they learn.

5. Images trump words.

We remember images. We forget words. Why? 50%-80% of our brain’s natural processing power is devoted to processing sight. That’s more than all of our other senses. We actually see with our brains, not our eyes. Likewise, when we hear a word, our brain translates it into an image.

6. Writing trumps reading (and listening).

Most audiences have been conditioned to sit and listen and not do anything else.

We write to remember. We remember because we write. (Now insert type or text for the word write in those sentences.)

When we write or type, we are processing information. We are thinking about it and thinking increases the likelihood or retention.

7. Movement trumps sitting.

The longer an audience sits, the less they learn.

From the beginning of time, our bodies and brains were made to move. It’s in our genes. We think better when we move. For education, this means getting up and moving across the room to a new table. Finding someone you don’t know, introducing yourself and then sharing some new learning.

8. Shorter trumps longer.

Neuroscience has proven that our attention span is 10 minutes. After that, our attention starts to wane. Chunking content into ten minute segments and then allowing learners 10 minutes to digest is the best way to learn. Does this mean the three hour session is dead? Absolutely not. It’s just designed differently with lots of breaks to allow time for discussion, reflection and application.

9. Different trumps same.

We notice things that have changed. We ignore things that stay the same. Difference, novelty, uniqueness, contrast and the unexpected juice our brains. Boring is the nemesis of learning.

Example: mandating a conference branded PowerPoint template for all speakers creates an image of sameness in our audience’s minds from session to session and shuts down learning!

10. Insight trumps knowledge.

Knowing 2+2=4 is one thing. Knowing how to apply that fact is more important.

Our brains learn information by applying new knowledge to past experience. Gaining insight into how to apply a fact or research is more important to our brain than the fact. Our brains crave meaning!

Which of these learning trumps surprise you and why? Which ones could easily be applied in your next education program?

As an adult, what drives you to learn?

Enjoyment? Fun? Growth? Developing new skills? Seeking a new career? Job promotion? Professional certification requirements? New experiences? Supervisor mandates?

All of the above? None of the above?

The Motivations To Learn

ASAE’s research, The Decision To Learn, states that the top two reasons people join nonprofit associations are:

1. Education and Professional Development
2. Receiving Cutting Edge Information

According to ASAE’s The Decision To Learn, the driving extrinsic motivation for adults to learn is to increase their job status which then increases their income and social standing in their chosen profession.

Knowing the latest research and how to apply it opens up new opportunities for career advancement. Learning, not information, is important to a better life. Information by itself does not improve one’s life. Knowing information does not improve one’s life. It’s the application of that information and what it means to the learner that’s important.

The driving intrinsic motivation for adults to learn is a general sense of accomplishment.

In order to feed their personal passions about subjects that they have limited knowledge or experience, adults want solutions to their real-world problems and issues. They desire solutions that improve their companies or their professional condition. And they want those solutions provided in provocative learning formats, not the standard boring talking head lectures.

Research Rants Or Relevant Solutions

When you plan education programming, do you remember these two driving motivations? Do you program annual meeting content that helps your customers advance their careers? Does you conference content provide solutions to real-world problems and issues?

Or are you education sessions nothing more than data dumps that force the listener to sift through the junk to find something meaningful to them? Is your conference content just research rants with all the facts, figures, numbers, stats and kitchen sink that learners never get to the root of results?

The learner does not need to hear speakers that recite all the data details. They can read that in a report if they want. What matters to them are the results and how it solves their problems or advances their careers.

During a paid education session, what matters more to you, the relevant results or the data details? Why do so many associations push content that is nothing more than a talking head research rant with very little takeaways?

In most nonprofit associations, education deserves some respect.

Yet it is frequently treated like the Rodney Dangerfield of the association world.

To paraphrase Dangerfield, “Education doesn’t get no respect. No respect, no respect at all. That’s the story of education’s life. Education gets no respect.”

Members Value Education

Typically, education is one of the top three reasons an association even exists.

It’s why people pay a membership fee to join the association. It’s why people attend the association’s annual meeting. It’s usually even listed in the mission statement and strategic plan.

Yet in a recent survey of association professionals, nearly 75 percent of nonprofit association respondents did not have a senior-level executive dedicated to education or professional development. Education was entrusted to mid-management or entry-level employees.

Why is that?

Part of the reason is that many organizations confuse information with education. They focus on information transfer and training when really what their members want is learning. If we understood the difference between information, education and learning, better, we might actually spend resources on providing better learning opportunities.

Ultimately, education and learning deserves some respect.

This Is A Travesty

Even more disturbing is that associations that have an annual budget of $3 million or more only focus 12 percent of the organization’s employees on education. If education is a primary reason people become and remain members, doesn’t it make sense that’s there’s room for growth in resources devoted to education?

For the majority of the survey respondents, the title of the most senior member of their organization’s education or professional development is a director or manager. Rarely are they involved in the strategic direction of the organization.

Who is driving and steering the organization’s education from the C-suite? No one.

Similarly, how often is that director or manager an education professional? Does that employee have formal education in how adults learn and andragogy? I’ve seen some association employees who have come from elementary or secondary schools. They are usually trained in pedagogy not andragogy.

Pedagogy literally means leading children. Andragogy is the art and science of adult learning. There is a difference!

Frequently employees in the education department have come from another department. They may have succeeded as an assistant or coordinator. Their primary role is to serve as project managers and schedulers. They are transactional task masters.

Would we hire an administrator with no experience in marketing for our marketing department? Would we put a coordinator with no understanding of technology in the IT department? So why do we allow it with the education department?

It’s time for education to get more respect. It’s time our associations put their budgets where their mission statements dictate and give education more resources! It’s time our associations give education more respect.

Why do association leaders frequently discount education? How do we increase the value of education in the eyes of the C-suite?

Whether we like it or not, the Web has changed the way we view things.

For example, we are accustomed to clicking to a new page when the current one is boring. We spend our time on Websites that give us the most satisfaction.

During conferences, people have no problem with walking out of a boring presentation, even if they are sitting in the front of the room. The Web has taught them not to waste their time on things that do not give them some fulfillment.

Six Ways The Internet Is Changing Conference Learning

Author and educator Jay Cross identified nine ways the Internet is changing the best corporate learning. Here are six ways to leverage Cross’ Internet values for your conference education.

1. Peer Power Rules

Think of your conference education as a partnership with the attendees–the learners–not a one-way delivery of content. In today’s knowledge era, the audience knows as much or even more than the speaker. Subject matter networks subvert the traditional subject matter expert.

Secure learning facilitators that share a small amount of content and then let the learners discuss it. Peer to peer learning is better than the traditional sage on the stage.

2. Authenticity Leads

The Internet invites and encourages “Tell it like it is.”

For conferences, it’s acknowledging that the experts don’t have all the answers. It’s admitting that we are in this together. It’s benefitting from the wisdom of the crowd’s experience.

Sometimes, it’s best to let the learners struggle with the issues and share what’s has and hasn’t worked. Connecting people to each other and their experiences is wise.

3. Transparency Guides

People and organizations that horde information actually harm themselves. You can’t build trust and relationships with those that aren’t willing to share. We learned that in kindergarten.

Adopting an attitude that sharing information will help the industry or profession move forward is best.

4. Long Live The Perpetual Beta

If you wait to market your conference education after it is all finalized, you’ll be out of date. It’s ok to start marketing before everything is completed.

Similarly, it’s ok to experiment with learning formats. Let your learners help you refine and evaluate new offerings. Use their feedback to drive changes.

5. Adopt The Long Tail

When it comes to conference education, the niche specialists, small businesses and nimble teams have traditionally been short changed. We used a one-size fits all conference education model.

The Web now lets us scale things faster. We can connect rich niches together before the event and create customized learning for them at our conference. Look for unique opportunities to leverage these often overlooked specialists, small organizations and teams.

6. Foster Connections

If your conference learning program does not support the power of networks, it will fail. Learning takes place through conversations, collaborations, storytelling and story sharing, community chats and revealing experiences and knowledge.

Savvy conference organizers create digital and face-to-face water cooler chat opportunities that embrace informal learning. These networking sessions are more than trading business cards or looking for business opportunities.

What are some other ways the Internet is changing conference learning? Which of these do you like for your own learning and why?

What’s wrong with your conference? It’s just like school!

Most conference education has adopted bad baggage from America’s education system.

Every conference organizer was brainwashed for twelve or more years that our education system works. Every conference host is convinced that education only occurs with a subject matter expert at the front of the room lecturing to a group of silent passive listeners. Every conference executive thinks that their customers learn the same way they do.

Unfortunately, they are dead wrong!

What’s Wrong With Traditional Education?

What’s wrong with traditional education? It’s failing miserably. America’s education system is lagging terribly behind the rest of the world. It is a remnant of a long-gone era.

The result? Upward social mobility is declining. Participants of Occupy Wall Street protest because our inequality gap widens. Climbing the social ladder is no longer the American dream.

Consider the following outdated education methods:

• The factory model reigns with students treated as products on an assembly line where information is dumped in their heads through their ears resulting in learning. (Not!)
• Hearing is the best way to learn. (False!)
• Subject matter experts (SMEs) are the source of all right answers. (So wrong!)
• Critical thinking and group problem solving is considered cheating. (It’s how today’s work gets done.)
• Schools are in a safe bubble, protected from the real world guaranteeing that they are out of touch with reality. (Disconnected relevancy.)
• Teachers coerce students to memorize facts to pass standardized tests instead of motivating them to learn. (What’s in it for me?)

Unfortunately, our conferences mimic traditional education.

Time For Conference Change

It’s time to break out of the traditional conference education mold. It’s time to focus on what it takes to foster real learning!

It’s time to:

1. Conceive education experiences that are multisensory where attendees take in information through hearing, seeing, writing, discussing, imagining, reflecting, participating and teaching others. Not just passively listening.
2. Enable attendees to connect with and learn from each other.
3. Dedicate time for reflection, thinking and discussion on the conference schedule.
4. Design education experiences for meaningful peer conversations about specific relevant issues.
5. Move beyond the traditional “grab as many business cards, meet as many people” networking sessions to engaging, structured, intentional peer connections.
6. Devise learning experiences where people work in small groups to problem solve together.
7. Create engaging education experiences that capture learners’ attention.
8. Move from monologues to facilitated education experiences.
9. Hire experienced professional educators to create meaningful, education that sticks.
10. Provide simulations where attendees can practice new skills or review the knowledge they have acquired.
11. Construct sessions where attendees can summarize what they have learned, evalute it, celebrate it and create action plans for how they plan to use it.

What would you add to the list of things conferences should change? Why are conference organizers resistant to change?

If more college students are embracing online learning, won’t they have similar expectations when they start their professional careers? You be the judge.

Via: Online PhD Programs Blog

Distance learning, often called online or eLearning, has evolved dramatically from the 1700s to the Millennium.

Many adults are seeking more education opportunities and degrees online.

This inforgraphic from Rasmussen College illustrates how online learning technology has changed through the years.

How has online learning affected your organization? Which do you prefer, online or face to face, learning and why?

Ever been stuck and feel like you can’t get out of your box? Maybe even backed into a corner?

I have. And I suspect you have too.

Routine Thinking Leads To Being Stuck

I believe that often we do the same thing so much that we can’t see another way of proceeding.

Our minds really don’t like to think. It defaults to a mental path we’ve created over and over again. It takes less energy and mental work to follow the same path or process.

It’s just like driving home from the grocery store. We tend to take the same path and never vary our trek.

But what’s wrong with that you might ask. Well, a lot. If we don’t vary our methods, we miss the obvious or some fresh idea. We get stuck.

The consequence? We are predisposed to ignore the open spaces of our box. Our logic becomes counterproductive because we box ourselves in and produce the same solution to problem that we’ve always done.

Digging Holes

Psychologist Edward de Bono noticed the same issue.

He said, “You cannot dig a hole in a different place by digging the same hole deeper.”

Think about it. Trying harder in the same direction, especially if the direction is wrong, will not lead to any progress. It actually hinders the chances of breaking out of the box.

De Bono created the term lateral thinking to help others think differently about their problems. Lateral thinking asks you to dig as many holes as you can. Each new hole may help uncover a new possibility. It might work or it might not. If it does, then great. If not, you simply dig another hole and continue the search.

Tips For Thinking Laterally

Here are seven tips to help you dig new holes and get unstuck.

1. Challenge

Question everything that has been done. Challenge assumptions. Ask why or why not?

2. Focus

Pick a random object. See what thoughts the object inspires. How does it apply to your situation?

3. Provoke

Intentionally create an off-the-wall, wild counterpart to the normal accepted idea. See the process as a way to new ideas and not an end in itself.

4. Invent

Set a minimum goal of 50 alternative ideas no matter how odd they may be. Don’t over analyze at this point.

5. Suspend

During your brainstorming of digging new holes, don’t rush to judge new ideas. Suspend judgment for now.

6. Cluster

Look closely at some of the ideas you’ve brainstormed. Can you group any of them into similar categories?

7. Harvest

Now it’s time to analyze and judge. Begin this process by selecting the best ones that deserve more attention.

When using lateral thinking just go crazy. Consider mundane and ridiculous ideas. You’re looking for the knock-off effect. One idea may be a stepping stone to another. It may feel strange and odd and don’t give up. At some point you will reach new innovations.

What are some other ways to encourage thinking differently about our problem or situation? Why do we allow doubt and preconceptions to dismiss original thinking?

To paraphrase cognitive scientist and author Cathy Davidson:

Our nonprofit institutions, for the most part trade and professional associations as well as professional societies, are acting as if the world has not suddenly, irrevocably, cataclysmically, epistemically changed.

Learning Is Changing

Learning is changing. Anyone. Any time. Anywhere.

By the end of 2011, 2 billion people will be connected to the web.

That could be 2 billion predators or 2 billion initiators, depending upon your perspective. It’s clearly an opportunity for 2 billion connections.

Those 2 billion people are living in a “pull information world,” not a push broadcast interruption world.

Ten Learning Shifts

These shifts affect our learning. Yet most of these shifts are conspicuously absent from our associations and conferences.

1. Conversations with strangers

In online social media networks, people are comfortable with talking with total strangers that may have some weak link of commonality. Rarely do conference hosts organize networking sessions where people can converse with strangers that have some thread of likemindedness.

2. Interaction

Our organizations need fewer presentations and more interactions. Leaders need to understand how to design experiences that foster connections, one-to-one dealings, involvement, participation and personal contributions. Organizations should find new ways to reward contributions and sharing. Less monologues and more individual dialogues. Knowledge sharing in small groups is critical.

3. Digital Presence

People are creating their online resumes such as in LinkedIn. Younger generations create their own websites that serve as a digital portfolio of their work, experience and evidence of achievements. Organizations should teach their customers how to create and manage their online footprints and be “Googled well.”

4. Social Sharing Economy

People are sharing lots of information with each other online. Many organizations restrict the bulk of their information to members only. Is your organization sharing the best of their practice with the world? Without sharing, education falters, advocacy is not enabled.

5. Infotention

Mindful infotention is a combination of learned attention and online information tools. Howard Rheingold created the word infotention to describe the combination of brain-powered attention skills blended with computer powered information filters. Organizations should teach customers how to manage multiple streams while mining it for the data they need for learning and success. Curating content for customers and potential customers is another way organizations can help their customers get ahead.

6. Digital Literacy

More than ever, our customers need to know how to detect misinformation, judge accuracy and fact, and define authority. Association and conference customers need to learn skills on managing online conversations, tolerance for other people’s views and how to adapt to a rapidly changing world in this digital age.

7. Life-Long Learning

One of the most important skills needed for success today is creating a culture of life-long learning. Learning is life-long and life-wide. Organizations should foster and create an atmosphere conducive to learning.

8. Collaboration

What can you do is being replaced with “What can you and your networks do.” According to Jay Cross, “Knowledge is moving from the individual to the individual and his/her contacts.” People today are working together to solve problems. Many need help with perfecting their collaborative skill set and learning how to work in partnership with others, especially if these people are strangers online.

9. Mobile

It’s time to stop designing programs for platforms and start designing for mobile screens. Which screen is your customer using to connect with you? The PC is dead. The laptop is a bridge. Long live the smartphone and tablet.

10. Helping Customers Follow Their Passion

Organizations need to create engaging and empowering learning experiences for all learners. It’s not about a one-size fits all curriculum. It’s about leveraging the power of technology to provide personalized learning opportunities so customers can follow their passions.

Which of these shifts resonates with you personally? Which shifts will be difficult for conference organizers and association leaders to adopt?